Rape at UVA

This week’s blog topic deals with the story about an alleged gang rape at the University of Virginia, published on November 19^th by Rolling Stone magazine. The article tells the events of a freshman student named Jackie who was allegedly gang raped by 7 men at a fraternity party. The article inevitably caused a lot of shock and outrage towards UVA for failing to report this incident. However, following the aftermath of the article, it became clear that the journalist who wrote the article, Erderly, did not fact check any information from Jackie’s initial story. They claimed it was due to the sensitive and delicate nature of the story and they wanted to give the rape victim, Jackie, the benefit of the doubt.  In her article “Blame Rolling Stone”, Hanna Rosin says:

In his statement, managing editor Will Dana says the magazine relied on Jackie’s credibility and now realizes its trust was “misplaced.” (In a later series of tweets on Friday, Dana wrote that the failure “is on us—not on her.”) But any story, much less one as damning and explosive as this one, should never rely on just the credibility of one source.

This in itself is cause for ethical concern. Rolling Stone had to have known there could be potential outrage and backlash over this story, so wouldn’t they have wanted to protect their only source by verifying her facts? While we will never know the truth, we do know that Rolling Stone did a poor journalistic job; it’s possible it wasn’t intentional or it’s possible that they only wanted to serve themselves and have their story to go viral, which of course it did. However, it is clear that Erderly did not adequately serve her source. One aspect of this story I found particularly troubling is when it was made known that Jackie explicitly asked Erderly to remove her name from the story, but was refused. An article I found on vox.com says “If Rolling Stone published the story against Jackie's will, that is a terrible mistake on the magazine's part — and a violation of the ethical guidelines reporters should follow when reporting difficult, and sensitive stories about rape”.

I think Jackie does of course deserve privacy but her story should also have been fact checked. The very nature and ethics of journalism require journalists to make sure their stories are accurate and truthful. Chapter 2 in Wilkins and Lee lists a set of values, which should exist in journalism. They include accuracy, confirmation, and dignity, three things of which the RS article did not have. One writer from New York Magazine very aptly puts it by saying, “Protecting vulnerable subjects means not just being sensitive to their privacy and trauma; it also means getting the story right. Otherwise, a reporter leaves them open to the kind of credibility attacks critics are now leveling at Jackie”. In my opinion, both the magazine and the reporter are at fault for not being more transparent in their work. They opened themselves up to serious errors and as we know, journalists have an ethical and professional duty to pursue the truth about significant issues as accurately and as possible.

In looking at this case in terms of one of our philosophers, I was thinking about Rawl’s Veil of Ignorance, which asks decision makers to examine the situation objectively from all points of view. Rolling Stone obviously did not do this; while it might have shed light on the topic of sexual assault on college campuses as a whole, it did not objectively and accurately portray the details surrounding the event. One would think that the first thing a reporter would do in when receiving a story like this would be to at least verify that a party or event occurred at the frat house that night. Erderly failed to do even that. I would also look at Ross’s duties in this situation. As we have learned, Ross distinguished between the right and the good with the help of several duties. In their book Media Ethics: Issues and Cases, Wilkins and Lee say they would add an additional duty to this list, one which is implied but not specifically stated, which is “the duty to the tell the truth, veracity “ (16). Clearly, Rolling Stone did not tell the whole truth in their story, something we expect a reporter to do.

I think activism journalism can be dangerous because the very nature of journalism is that it is meant to be objective. While it is hard for anyone to remain objective while reading a sexual assault case, it is the duty of the journalist to objectively and accurately portray their source to their readers. Unfortunately, because of their failure to do this, their source, and the victim, now has to suffer with people not believing her story.  In closing with this post, I turn to Bok’s method of decision making in which she examines the following:

1.     Is there another professionally acceptable way to achieve the same goal that will not raise ethical issue?
2.      How will others respond to the proposed act?

I think it’s safe to say Bok would not agree with Rolling Stone’s behavior in this case. This article did nothing to promote a greater good and instead caused a lot of distress and turmoil for not just their source, but also the larger community and beyond.